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September 1, 2015

Everly, Everleigh, and Everlee

Everly ~ From the Boar Meadow ~ English

History & Meaning
This name may be completely contemporary, but it's also a traditional English surname that has gone undiscovered until recently.

It does have a meaning, the "Ever" portion of the name coming from the English eorfor, which means wild boar, and the -ly suffix meaning a woodland clearing or meadow. That leads us to a loose translation along the lines of a wild boar in the woodland clearing...or you can just go with my favorite way to sum it up: From the Boar Meadow. Surnames are used to describe a family, after all, and this was a way to talk about where that family lived. It has a fantastic, rural countryside image for me—a meadow where wild boars may like to roam through from time to time sounds like a beautiful spot.

If this name instead makes you think of the word ever, with connotations of forever, evergreen, evermore, and eternity, I think that's beautiful too. Even though it's not true to the name's roots, it can be difficult to separate our obvious modern associations from a name like Everly, and this group of meanings happens to be gorgeous. You could use both when you talk about your daughter's name with her someday, and I think the name has extra depth because of its meaning and its feeling, so to speak.

Style & Sound
We love this name primarily for its sound. Everly is hitting all the right style notes, striking a chord as both contemporary and elegant. Many of us are drawn to it not as a historic English surname, but as a beautiful spinoff of the word "ever," as well as more popular names like Emily or Evelyn. And in case you're noticing a hint of the '30s in this name, Everly would be a fitting and creative way to honor a Beverly.

Popularity
Everly recently made name news by being one of the highest rising girls' names in both the US and in England and Wales. People love this name! As far as American stats go, Everly first appeared in the top 1,000 names for girls in 2012 at a modest rank of 905. But then something happened. 2013 saw a huge increase in popularity for this name, and it rose to 380. Last year Everly hit an impressive rank of 178.

There's a teensy catch—there are a few other spellings being used for this name. Reinventions of Everly mean that it has a sound that's more popular than the stats can tell us. Adding up all of the girls with different spellings born last year puts this name at a rank closer to 120, between Liliana and Mary. But going down that rabbit hole would also mean tallying all the other alternative spellings for every name, so take that number with a grain of salt.

The bottom line is that Everly is gaining popularity and hasn't yet reached it's peak. It's a beautiful name!

Spellings In Order of Popularity

EverlyThis is the most popular spelling by far, so it's probably going to be considered the "easiest" to spell and read.

Everleigh

Everlee

Everley

EverlieLess than 50 girls were given this spelling of the name last year

Everli

EverleaLess than 10 girls were given this spelling of the name last year